Coleman celebrates school milestone

Published 8:00 pm, Sunday, January 27, 2002

It was a time for remembering and reminiscing at Sundays 50th anniversary of Coleman Elementary School. The school opened Jan. 27, 1952.

By By Angela E. Lackey of the Daily News

COLEMAN  In a 1958-1959 school picture was a smiling elementary student named Julia Mester who had long dark hair flipped under and a sailor-collar shirt. A black and white picture showed some little boys goofing off for the camera, one blowing a bubble.

It was a time for remembering and reminiscing at Sundays 50th anniversary of Coleman Elementary School. The school opened Jan. 27, 1952.

Jean Sprenger, 64, was 13 or 14 when the school was opened. She sang with the high schools Glee Club at the dedication. She carried a faded yellow newspaper clipping of the club, pointing out where her mother had circled her photograph.

About 75 to 80 people munched on cake and cookies and drank punch as they talked, looked at a scrapbook and old pictures and watched a video.

Rows of schoolchildren smiled out from their class pictures. Other pictures, some in black and white, showed students lined up for lunch or posing for the camera. The girls all wore dresses in the black and white pictures.

The video showed boys playing football, students leaving school and children boarding red, white and blue buses, all in the jerky 8 millimeter style. The patriotic buses soon gave way to the traditional yellow ones.

Janet Haggart, 54, was known as Janet Ranck when she was a kindergarten student in 1952. Haggert remembered the students had an hour for lunch.

"We had a hot lunch; it was a quarter," Haggert said. "We had quite a full course meal."

Haggert said the kindergartners got to ride on the bus  "The bus was a really big deal."

She remembered her teacher as Miss Nobbs, who taught all five children in Haggarts family.

"She seemed old, but she probably wasnt," Haggart laughed.

Haggert said Miss Nobbs was both very nice and very strict.

"Kids didnt do the things they do nowadays," Haggert said.

Former principal Richard C. Latta, 68, agreed students have changed through the years. Latta oversaw the school from 1968 until 1994 and occasionally acts as substitute principal in some schools.

"Those who have problems are more rude and disrespectful than when I started," Latta said.

When he first started, the elementary school was using the 1952 building, plus seven annexes out back and a two-room school on North Bradley.

"We needed more building space," Latta said. The school was expanded in the 1970s.

Those attending also got a glimpse of the future. The Coleman Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO) had new playground plans spread out on one table during the celebration. The futuristic equipment included a rock-climbing wall and a slide that splits into three.